Understanding Money and the Meaning of Life
Happiness is something that every person seeks, we all want to be satisfied. Sometimes people can not find happiness in their lives so they seek other ways to get it, they start trying to buy their own happiness. Buying your own happiness may seem good at first, until you can no longer fill the void and you just keep buying more and more. They eventually bury themselves into a hole they can not get out of. What needs to be understood is that no matter how much money you make or can get, you should be satisfied with yourself if you work hard and have a good life because it could easily be taken away.
Once you have a taste of what it is like to have more money than you need, you start to want more and more. You start to care less about others and only worry about what you can do for yourself. Once you let money take control you start to lose the people you love and care for. You could even possibly lose everything you have worked for by putting it on the line just to gain more money. Like Jacob Needleman said in his book, Money and the Meaning of Life, “It has a power to bring people together as well as tear them apart. You can’t escape money. If you run from it, it will chase you and catch you.” (Needleman, Money and the Meaning of Life.)
Some people think that money is the solution to all their problems, they believe that as long they have money they have power and happiness. A question you might would ask is, “how much money is
From a personal perspective, people do not have to have money to be happy, but some money is necessary in order to survive. Chris McCandless passed away in the Alaskan wild because he did not have the proper means of survival for those conditions. His family kept saying, “I just do not understand why he had to take those kind of chances” (Krakauer 132). His own family even hated him for believing the way he did. If he had money to go buy more food and some better supplies for his trip to Alaska, then there is a much higher chance that he would have survived.
Money and Happiness Why most of rich people are not happy with what they have? Happiness is the feeling which people feel it when they are satisfied with what they have even though these people are poor or rich. Money is the way that people use it to bring things which they can buy it by money. Sharon Begley in her article “Why Money Doesn’t Buy Happiness” states that sometimes there are relationship between money and happiness because people always try to spend less money when they want to buy somethings.
Happiness is an emotion that can be very easily obtained however it can be very hard to get that intense of joy sometimes. The emotional state of being content is one of the most amazing feelings in the world. Although there is always that clique question, “Does money create happiness?” To answer that no it does not and there is various ways to prove it. Money is just a piece of paper that controls most of your life ,but happiness is not one of them.
Does money control today's society? The Younger family is an African American family in Chicago in the 1950s. The family lives in a small and ratty one window apartment. They are an “average” family who receives the proceeds from a $10,000 life insurance policy from the death of Walter Lee Sr. Everyone in the family has their own idea of what they want to do with the money, if it was up to one of them. The author's story setting is in the apartment surrounded by various conflicts, conversations and actions of the characters. The story line is only a couple of days, but in that time the author is able to show how poverty can have a negative effect on the Younger family.
Growing up in a family where both my parents came from poor immigrant backgrounds always made financial success a priority and when there was no need to be frugal, my parents did seem happier. But did money buy my parents’ happiness or did money lead to their happiness? Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener attempt to answer that question in their excerpt “Can Money Buy Happiness,” where they claim that “[m]oney can be a help in attaining psychological wealth, but it should be considered in the bigger picture of what makes people general genuinely rich (Biswas-Diener 161). Although not explicitly defined by Diener and Biswas-Diener, “psychological wealth” is the overall measure of happiness, beyond just fiscal affluence, including positive ties with other individuals and joyful temperaments (Biswas-Diener 168). By extending Biswas-Diener and Diener’s idea of “psychological wealth” to include the perception of what wealth is and what wealth consists of beyond monetary success, such as achievements or fulfillment, there exist a copious number of ways to view wealth. One can be rich in more than finances and happiness is dependent upon the perception of wealth due to money being one of several paths, including deliberate effort and being positive, to “psychological wealth” which leads to happiness.
Money plays an important role in everyone’s life, but having money doesn’t mean you can buy happiness or love. A person being wealthy, having all that money can cause fame and popularity, but true happiness can never be obtained. If you have money you can buy any happiness you want. But no one thinks about the opposite side of it. If you don’t have that money, because money is something you get if you’re destined to have it. Money can be a source of limited happiness, but not for lifetime. Money does have value, but you don’t need that to be happy. It’s not necessary to have money to be happy. Sometimes people with money, can be careless, they don’t care about others. They only think about themselves, only about their happiness. This causes
Nowadays, people think the only way to live a happy life is if you have a lot of money. I know that they are wrong. You don't need to have a lot of money to be happy. In the story 'Raisin' In The Sun' Walter said something that is completely wrong, "Money is life." Here is a good example of someone who thinks the only way to living happy is if you have a lot of money. I'm not trying to tell you that you don't need money at all, but you don't need to be rich. You shouldn't get caught up in caring about money so much that you lose relationship with your family or friends. I know it's hard to think of, but it can and will happen. Here's another example of what I've been trying to explain, "I want so many things that they are driving me kind of crazy... Mama look at me." Again, Walter is saying how much he wants money and how he is not responsible with money. He is telling his mom that money is driving him crazy. Mama tried helping her family out and buy a nice house for her family but Walter got selfish and didn't like that she spent the money. Mama says, "Son- I just tried to find the nicest place for the least amount of money for my family." She bought a nice house for her family for a cheap amount of money, like I said before, you don't need a lot of money to be
The subject of this paper is the age-old question, “Does Money Buy Happiness”. On the surface, this question appears to be an easy one. Happiness however, is a subjective item. To better answer this, several points must be analyzed such as, “What is happiness?”, “How is it measured?” etc. To better streamline this process, a research question was developed:
Money is a main worry for some people. It is a necessity for anyone who is trying to succeed in life. Many believe that the only way to success is to have a
There is a paint of confinement to the measure of cash that we can spend on ourselves. Still, the wealthiest among have amassed riches they or their offspring will never use in their existence. Still, they are not fulfilled. They want more. Thus greed more. That is the bit of cash. It never makes individuals content. The individuals who would prefer have it not have it. The individuals who have it need to have significantly a greater amount of it. Tragically, in our quest for wealth, we frequently neglect to live. We neglect to welcome the little delights that make our lives worth
According to the Dictionary, “happiness is the mental or emotional state of well being which can be defined by others. A pleasurable or satisfying experience.”. Of course that’s true, the feeling of happiness is what it’s scientifically defined as, but happiness is much more than that. Happiness could be a certain sound, a smell, even feeling a certain piece of clothing or a thick warm blanket. People spend hours even years trying to work for what they think is happiness. They work for hours to get large amounts of money, but they never find the happiness their looking for. That’s because happiness isn't materialistic, happiness isn't something you can buy with expensive items. Even though some people believe you can buy happiness, that’s
Everyone wants to live a happy life. Even those people that hate everything about everyone. The trick is how to get that wanted happiness. Is money a way to achieve this happiness? People, philosophers, professors, and ordinary, everyday people have been pondering this age-old question about the relationship between money and happiness and if money can buy happiness for a very long time. Much research and many surveys have been asked and performed by excited researchers and agog economists. A lot of experiments and presentations galore were rendered by inquisitive University professors and intrigued university undergraduates to provide useful data. As it turns out, money can and will buy happiness for everyone that spends it at the right time and on the right things.
Landau states that “more money does not necessarily buy more happiness, but less money is associated with emotional pain” meaning money is materialistic and in the long run will not effect long term happiness (Landau 2). Money will buy you something materialistic that will be temporary in your life but after time fades you will eventually get bored until you find something new although it might have left you with some good memories and experience.
It should be highlighted that money may allow one to get all the temporary comforts of life, but it must also be considered as to which type of person benefits from money as well. For example, an individual dying from an incurable illness, cannot be satisfied while being in possession of a great deal of money, when they are not even able to spend and enjoy it to its fullest content. Furthermore, someone with vast riches may be considered lucky by many, but the individual himself only realizes that if there is no one to share the bounties with, there is indeed no sweetness, no matter how ripe the fruit may be. Then again, if you happen to pick out someone from the opposite end of the upper class and elite, someone who belongs to a third class community, having a large family, loving spouse and even the beloved pet, he or
Money is a precious thing and it can become challenging to not spend it immediately after getting it. It is crucial that this does not happen. There is no denying that money is an important part of society. The world revolves around money and without it, one? would not be able to function. In everyday life the average household will spend one hundred and sixty dollars daily. It is safe to say that money is an resource used daily. It is a tool that can be used to connect with other people or buy anything a person could want or need. Yet it is easy to spend money without realizing how much is really being spent. With only a few simple tips it will become much easier to save money instead of spending it on frivolous things. One’s hard-earned dollar should be saved, and simple tips such as using cash instead of cards, saving small change and only purchasing what one really needs are a few of many ways of doing this. The power of money can easily be abused and it is very important to make sure that a person is well informed on ways to save and spend money wisely.